“EUTHANASIA, A HARD DILEMMA”

ORNELA AYGÜN (İngilizce Öğretmeni) 12 Şubat 2020 Çarşamba 00:00:00 ÖÖ

Sonraki Makale

The definition of this term will help some people understand it and make them think: ‘A doctor is allowed by law to end a person's life by a painless means, as long as the patient and their family agree.’ Maybe we never thought of it seriously because it did not happen close to our circle of relatives. As everything else, euthanasia has its own positive and negative aspects. There is no doubt about the difficulty of being in the position of having to decide whether to end someone’s life or let it happen naturally.
Starting with the negative arguments: even the oath that all doctors take is against euthanasia. The oath dates back to 2500 years: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect." Some countries are changing somehow it depending on the way they want it to be applied: "If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty." Regarding religion, some faiths see it as a kind of murder. Another thing is patient’s condition. If he /she is mentally competent to be able to take a conscious decision it would be under his concern and self willingness, otherwise it can be taken into consideration. There are cases that the patients feel like a burden for their family and prefer to give an end to their life. So this would be a decision taken under the feeling of guiltiness. There are other cases when the patient is not physically and mentally able to take decision for his life so members of family take this responsibility of decision. Maybe they see the person suffering and want to give an end to it. What if there is a small probability of recovering? The chances are small but not impossible though.
As for the arguments for euthanasia, it should be accepted that there must freedom of choice from the patient to decide for his own life, no one knows better how much they are suffering and if he/she can bear the pain any longer or not. Sometimes watching your beloved ones being in pain causes more pain. Being just witness of suffering and not being able to help the situation, euthanasia comes to help solve it in a dignitous way for both parties.
It is up to every one to decide and it is for sure not the easiest thing to do. Only when you find yourself in the dilemma of this decision you understand how difficult it is. My personal opinion is to do what your instincts say and weight well both negative and positive sides.

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